The Sixth Science Fiction Megapack

by Arthur C. Clarke

  She met his gaze steadily. “Yes,” she said. “But—”

  “What is it? Where?”

  Abruptly Kari’s face changed. She pressed herself against Stuart, avoiding his lips, simply seeking—he knew—warmth and companionship. She was crying softly.

  “So long—” Kari whispered, her arms tight around him. “I’ve been here so long—with the gods. And I’m so lonely, Derek Stuart. So lonely for green fields and fires and the blue sky. I wish—”

  “You’ll see Earth again,” Stuart promised. At that Kari pulled away. Her strange half-breed loveliness was never more real than then, with tears sparkling on her dark lashes, and her mouth trembling.

  She said, a catch in her voice, “I’ll show you the weapon, Stuart.”

  She turned toward the wall. Her hand moved in a quick gesture. A panel opened there in the glowing surface.

  Kari reached in, and when she withdrew her arm, it was as though she held a torrent of blood that poured down from her grip.

  It was a cloak, Stuart saw, made of some material so fine that it rippled like water. Its crimson violence was bizarre against the cool green of Kari’s garment.

  “This cloak—” she said. “You must wear it if we face the Aesir.”

  Stuart grimaced. “What good is a piece of cloth? A blaster gun’s what I want.”

  “A blaster wouldn’t help,” Kari said. “This is more than a piece of cloth, Stuart. It is half alive—made so by the sciences of the Aesir. Wear it! It will protect you.” She swung the great, scarlet billows about Stuart’s shoulders. Her fingers fumbled with the clasp at his throat. And then—

  She lies!

  The desperate urgency of the thought roared through Stuart’s mind. He knew that soundless voice, so sharp now with violent intensity. His hands came up to rip the cloak from him.

  He was too late. Kari sprang back, wide-eyed, as the fastenings of the cloak tightened like a noose about Stuart’s neck. He felt a stinging shock that ran like white fire along his spine and up into his brain. One instant of blazing disorientation, a hopeless, despairing cry in his mind—a double cry, as of two telepathetic voices—and then, his muscles too weak to hold him, he crashed down upon the floor.

  It was not paralysis. He was simply drained of all strength. There was pressure about his throat, cold flames along his spine and in his brain, and he could feel the texture of the cloak wrapped about him, striking through his spaceman’s garb—tingling, sentient, half-alive!

  He whispered an oath. Kari’s face had not changed. He read something strangely like pity in her dark eyes.

  From the gap in the wall whence she had drawn the cloak came a figure, cloaked in black, a jet cowl hiding its head and face completely. It was taller than the girl by a foot. It shuffled forward with an odd, rocking gait and paused near her.

  Stuart whispered, “I—should have remembered. The—the Aesir can change their shapes. Those giants I saw weren’t real. And neither are you—not even human!”

  Kari shook her head. “I am real,” she said slowly. “But—he is not.” She gestured toward the black-cloaked figure. “But we are all of the Aesir. And, as we thought, you were sent by the Protectors. Now your power is gone, and you must walk the Long Orbit with the other captives.”

  The cowled creature came forward. It bent, but Stuart could see nothing in the shadow of the hood. A fold of cloth writhed out and touched Stuart’s forehead.

  Darkness wrapped him like the shroud of the scarlet cloak.

  IV

  For a long time he had only his thoughts for company. They were not pleasant. He felt alone, as he had never felt so utterly lonely and deserted before anywhere in the System. Now he realized that even since his landing on Asgard, he had had companionship of a sort—that the twin voices murmuring in his brain had been more real than he had realized. A living warmth, a sense of—of presence—had been with him then.

  But it was gone now. Its absence left a black void within him. He stood alone.

  And Kari.… If he saw her again when his hands were free, he would kill her. He knew that. But—but her shining smile lightened the darkness that engulfed him now. He had never seen loveliness like Kari’s, and he had known so many women, so many, too many.… A man who has fought his way Sunward and back again by way of Pluto’s chasmed midnight is not so easily misled by the smile of a pretty woman.

  Kari was no ordinary woman—God knew she was not! Perhaps not even human, perhaps not even real at all. It might be that very touch of alienage that had stamped her shining image upon his memory, but he could not put the image aside now. He saw her clearly in the darkness of his captivity and the deeper dark of his loneliness, now that the voices were stilled. Lovely, exotic, with the eyes full of longing and terror—what lies they told!—and that lovely, that dazzling smile.

  Bitterness made a wry taste in his mouth. Either she was one of the Aesir, or she served them. Served them well. A knife in the heart was the only answer he had for her, and he meant to give her that edged answer if he lived. But she was so very lovely.…

  Slowly the veil of darkness lifted. He saw a face he had seen before—the harsh, seamed features of the burly Earthman in the pit. And beyond him, the slim Martian girl. All motionless, standing like statues beside him…beside him! For Stuart was one of them now. He was in the pit, with the other captives.

  Sensation came back slowly. With it came a tingling, a warm vibration along his spine…about his throat…inside his brain. He could not move, but at the corner of his range of vision flamed a crimsonness—the cloak. He still wore it.

  He wondered if the other captives could see him, if their minds were as active as his in their congealed bodies. Or whether the chill of deathlike silence held their brains along with their frozen limbs.

  A slow, volcanic fury began to glow within him. Kari—traitor and murderess! Was she Aesir? Was she Earth-born? And that black-cloaked, cowled creature which was not real. Another projector of the Aesir, as the giants had been?

  You were sent by the Protectors. Memory of Kari’s phrase came back to Stuart now. And with it, as though he had somehow unbarred a locked gate, opened it a mere crack, came a—a whispering.

  Not audible. Faint, far away, like the shadow of a wind rustling ghosts of autumn leaves, the murmur rose and fell…calling him.

  The scarlet cloak moved…writhed…flowed more closely about him. Fainter grew the voices.

  Stuart strained after them. His soul sprang up…reaching toward those friendly, utterly inhuman whispers that came from nowhere.

  A dull lethargy numbed him. The cloak drew tighter…

  He ignored it. Deep in the citadel of his mind, he made himself receptive, all his being focused on that—that strange calling from beyond.

  And, suddenly, there were words—

  “Derek Stuart. Can you hear us? Answer—”

  His stiff lips could not speak, but his thoughts formed an answer. And, rising and falling as though the frequency of that incredible telepathy pulsed and changed continually, the message came.

  “We have lost. You have lost too, Stuart. But we will stay with you—we must stay now—and perhaps your death will be easier because of that.…”

  “Who are you?” he thought, oddly awed by the personality he sensed behind that voice that was really two voices.

  “There is little time.” The—sound?—faded into a thin whisper, then grew stronger. “The cloak makes it hard for us to communicate with you. And now we can give you none of our power at all. It is a monstrous thing—a blasphemy such as only the Aesir would create. Half-alive, it makes an artificial synapse between the individual and outside mental contacts. We cannot help you—”

  “Who are you?”

  “We are the Protectors. Listen now, Stuart, for soon you must walk the Long Orbit with the others. We removed some of your memories, so the Aesir could not read your mind and have time to prepare themselves—we hoped we might destroy them this time. But—we have failed agai
n. Now—we give you your memories back.” Like a slowly rising tide, Stuart’s past began to return. He did not question how this was done; he was too busy lifting the veil that had darkened his mind since—since that night at the Singing Star in New Boston. A few drinks with the tired-eyed man, and then darkness.

  But the curtain was lifting now. He remembered…

  * * * *

  He remembered a tiny, underground room, with armed men—not many of them—staring at him. A voice that said, “You must either join us or die. We dare run no risks. For hundreds of years a tiny band of us has survived, only because the Aesir did not know we existed.”

  “Rebels?” he had asked.

  “Sworn to destroy the Aesir,” the man told him, and an answering glow burned briefly in the eyes of the others.

  Stuart laughed.

  “You have courage,” the man said. “You’ll need it. I know why you laugh. But we don’t fight alone. Have you ever heard of the Protectors?”

  “Never.”

  “Few have. They aren’t human, any more than the Aesir are. But they are not evil. They are humanity’s champions. They have sworn to destroy the Aesir, as we have—and so we serve them.”

  “Who are they, then? What are they?”

  “No man knows,” the other said quietly. “Who—and where—they are is a secret they keep to themselves. But we hear their messages. And once in a lifetime, not oftener, they tell us where we may find some man they have winnowed the planets to discover. In our lifetime, Stuart, you are the man.”

  He gaped at them. “Why? I—”

  “To be a weapon for the Protectors—a champion for mankind. The Protectors are so far beyond humanity they cannot fight our battles in their own forms. They need a—a vessel into which they can pour their power. Or—call it a sword to wield against the Aesir. They have searched the worlds over for a long while now, and you—” The man hesitated, looking narrowly at Stuart. “You are the only vessel they found. You have a great destiny, Derek Stuart.”

  He had scowled at them. “All right, suppose I have. What do they offer?”

  The man shook his head. “Death—if you’re lucky. No man before you has ever won a battle for the Protectors. You know that—the Aesir still rule! Every chance is against you. In a thousand years no man has won the gamble. But this is greater than you or us, Derek Stuart. Do you think you have any choice?”

  Stuart stared the other man in the eyes. “There’s no chance?”

  The leader smiled. All mankind’s indomitable hope was in the smile.

  “Would the Protectors have spent all their efforts, and ours, to find you if there were no hope? They have mighty and terrible powers. With the right man for their vessel, they could be stronger than the Aesir. No man could stand alone against the Aesir. The Protectors could not stand alone. But together—sword and hand and brain welded into one—yes, Stuart, there’s a chance!”

  “Then why have the others failed?”

  “No one has yet been quite strong enough. Only once in forty years—fifty—is a man born who might, with luck, have the courage and the strength. Look at us here—do you think we would not offer ourselves gladly? Instead, the Protectors guided us to you. If you are willing to let them establish contact with your mind, enter it, possess it—there’s a chance the Aesir can be destroyed. There’s a chance that man’s slavery may be ended!” His voice shook with that mighty hope.

  Stuart glanced around at the ardent, fanatical faces, and something in him took a slow fire from the fire in theirs. A deep and vital purpose, as old as humanity—how many times before in Earth’s history had men of Earth gathered in hidden rooms and sworn vows against tyranny and oppression? How many times before had Earthmen dedicated themselves and their son’s sons, if need be, to the old, old dream that though men may die, mankind must in the end be free?

  Here in this crowded room the torch of freedom still burned, despite the hell of slavery under which the worlds toiled now. He hesitated.

  “It won’t be easy, Stuart,” the man warned. “A sword-blade must be hammered on the anvil, heated in flame, before it’s tempered. The Protectors will test you—so that your mind may be toughened to resist the attacks of the Aesir later. You will suffer.…”

  He had suffered. Those agonizing, nightmare dreams in the forest, the phantoms that had tortured him—other trials he did not want to remember. But there had been no flaw in the blade. In the end, the Protectors had been satisfied, and had entered his mind—maintaining the contact that still held, though thinly now.

  And the voices he heard still whispering within him were the voices of his mentors.

  “We took your memories from you. So that the Aesir could not read too much in your mind and be forewarned. Now that does not matter, and you will be stronger with your memory restored. But when you let the girl clasp the cloak about you—that was failure.”

  “If I could move,” Stuart thought. “If I could rip it off—”

  “It is part of you. We do not know how it can be removed. And while you wear it, we cannot give you our power.”

  Stuart said bitterly. “If you’d given me that power in the first place—”

  “We did. How do you think you survived the first testing by the Aesir? And it is dangerous. We must gauge it carefully, so that we do not transmit too much of our mental energy to you. You are merely human—if we let you draw on a tenth of our power, that would burn you out like a melting wire under a strong current.”

  “So—what now?”

  “We have lost again. You have lost, and we are sorry. All we can do is give you an easy death. We possess you now, mentally; if we should withdraw from your brain, you would die instantly. We will do that whenever you ask. For the Aesir will kill you anyhow, and not pleasantly.”

  “I’m not committing suicide. As long as I live, I can still fight.”

  “We also. This has happened before. We have chosen and possessed other champions, and they have failed. We withdrew from their minds before the Aesir…killed…so that we could survive to try again. To wage another battle. Someday we will win. Someday we shall destroy the Aesir. But we dare not cling to our broken swords, lest we too be broken.”

  “So when the going gets tough, you step out!”

  Stuart sensed pity in the strange voice. “We must. We fight for the race of man. And the greatest gift we can give you now is a quick death.”

  “I don’t want it,” Stuart thought furiously. “I’m going to keep on fighting! Maybe that’s why you’ve always failed before—you were too ready to give up. So I’ll die if you step out of my mind? Well—it’s a lousy bargain!”

  There was no anger, only a stronger overtone of pity in the still voice.

  “What is it you want, Stuart?”

  “Nothing from you! Just let me go on living. I’ll do my own fighting. There’ll be time enough for you to run away when the axe falls. I’m asking you simply this—keep me alive until I’ve had another crack at the Aesir!”

  A pause. “It is dangerous. Dangerous for us. But—”

  “Well?”

  “We will take the risk. But understand—we must leave you if the peril grows too great. And it will—inevitably.”

  “Thanks,” Stuart said, and he meant it. “One thing. What about Kari? Who is she?”

  “A hundred years ago, she was human. Then she was brought here, and the Aesir possessed her—as we possess you. She has grown less human in that time, as the alien grows stronger within her. She has only faint memories of her former life now, and they will vanish soon. Contact with the Aesir is like an infection—she will grow more and more like them. Perhaps, eventually, become one of them.”

  Stuart grimaced. “If the Aesir should withdraw from her—”

  “She would die, yes. Her own life-force has been sapped too far. You and she are kept alive only as long as the bond of possession holds.”

  Nice, Stuart thought. If the Aesir were destroyed, Kari would die with him. And if he fa
ced doom, he too would die, as the Protectors withdrew to avoid sharing his fate.

  Hell—what did he care whether Kari lived or died? It was only the glamor of half-alienage that had drawn him to the girl. A dagger in her throat…

  Besides, he was certainly facing doom now.

  “All I can do—” he said—and stopped abruptly. He was speaking aloud. Patiently the twin voice in his brain waited for him to continue.

  Slowly he flexed his arms. He tilted back his head, staring up at the rim of the pit fifty feet above him. He could see the titan pillars rising toward the roof of that mighty tower, incredibly far above. But there was no sign of life.

  “I can move,” he said. “I—”

  Struck by a new thought, he gripped the folds of the cloak. It was nauseously warm and vibrant. It seemed to move under his hands. He jerked at it and felt a twinge of agonizing pain along his spine and about his throat, while a white-hot lance stabbed into his skull.

  “If I could get rid of this—you could help me?”

  “We could give you our power to use against the Aesir. But we do not know how to remove the cloak.”

  “I don’t either,” Stuart growled, and he paused as a movement caught his eye. The muscular Earthman near him was stirring. He turned slowly. Beyond him, the Martian girl swayed her feathery-crested head and lifted supple, slender arms. And the others—all about Stuart, they were wakening to motion.

  But no life showed in their dull eyes. No understanding. Only a blind, empty withdrawal.

  They turned, trooped toward the wall of the pit…toward an arched opening that was gaping suddenly.

  “The Long Orbit,” said the voice in Stuart’s mind.

  “What’s that?”

  “Death. As the Aesir feed. They feed on the life-force of living organisms.”

  “Is that the only way out?”

  “The only way open to you. Yes.”

  * * * *

  Stuart went slowly after the others. They had crossed the threshold now and were pacing along a tunnel, lit with cold blue brilliance, that curved very gradually toward the left. Behind him, a panel closed.